


I Desire You (or worse)

by Melimelo



Series: Weston/Edmund series - OW [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst and Feels, Boys In Love, Don't worry though there'll be ellipses, Eventual Smut, Following tags are only for the first 3 chapters, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Homophobia, I'll explain more in the first note, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-con in one chapter, Not between the romance pairings, Pining, Romance, Romance takes place over the span of a couple of years, Slow Burn, Teenagers, Threat of pedophilia, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Wild Historical Inaccuracy, Xenophobia, Young Adults, and let's call it, only in the first 3 chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29374047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melimelo/pseuds/Melimelo
Summary: Losing everything that had once been your life is supposed to allow you to see things with perspective.Weston had been assured, by the Lord and Lady, that he would, over time. He just needed to be a bit more patient.It didn’t make any sense, then, that he would turn so greedy, especially regarding his friend.But then, Edmund had always be special to him, their friendship precious, closer. He had no precise idea how to describe it, no, this was Edmund’s thing, not his. Like a brother, but not exactly – he remembered brothers.Edmund and him, it was different.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Weston/Edmund series - OW [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2060514
Comments: 10
Kudos: 11





	1. A Piece of Honey

**Author's Note:**

> So, welcome to this new story! This is going to be a long first note, but please read it in its entirety, for there’ll be important information.  
> First of all, as most of the tags and the summary indicate, this is a Romance Original Fic. Lot of emphasis on the Romance part.
> 
> BUT the first three chapters are a separate case. I’m going to post them because I’m rather proud of chapter 3 (and for it to makes sense chapters 1 and 2 are needed) but I understand it’s not everyone’s cup of tea and you clicked on that story to get romance. Don’t worry, it will come.  
> Those first chapters have a link to the romance part of the story, but as a sort of backstory (there are the back story of one of the main characters). And it’s a very tragic (some might say melodramatic) backstory, with triggering themes, and no romance at all. So, what I’ll do is that I will put the specific warning for each chapter in the beginning note, and a one-sentenced summary of things you’d really have to know for the rest of the story.
> 
> For this first chapter, there is:  
>  **Xenophobia**  
>  **Mentioned Torture** (it’s a retelling, to be precise, it’s not graphic, it concerns nails)  
> (There’s, frankly, no need for a summarized sentence for that part if you don’t plan on reading the following two chapters)
> 
> However, I added a little snippet of free-triggering scene before the triggering one. So, if you don’t want to read the latter, please stop at the ==--== sign.
> 
> On another note, this is the first original story I imagined with those characters. However, I already posted one, in the series. It’s a prison AU, mob AU, Porn with Plot. AKA that besides some of the main POV character’s (Weston, not Edmund) personality traits, it has no common point at all with this one. You don’t need to read it to understand the story / the characters :)
> 
> Just a few other little points: English is not my first language, so sorry for any horrid mistake, the title is from a song by Julien Clerc (French singer) titled _Femmes, je vous aime_ (Women, I love you – but who cares about genders, that song is gut-wrenching in the best way, imo) and this story will have regular updates.
> 
> Thank you for reading this note, and for giving a chance to that fic (I hope I didn’t lose too many people xD) and, remember, the first part of the chapter is 100% non-triggering.

“Where’re y’all running to?”

The question, thrown on the fly, made Weston’s steps falter as he looked around before smiling at the Old Fergus, sitting in front of his little house, albeit a bit shyly. He watched as the old man’s smile widened to an almost toothless mouth when Weston darted past the trees to make himself seen.

He shrugged, knowing he’d catch up with the others later. And his ma always told him it was bad manners to ignore an old person. Weston used to be scared of the Old Fergus, because he was strange and Sean had once told him he’d cook and simmer Weston if he came too close to his house, the next night after a full moon, but that had been before. Now, he was big – he had just turned ten, and even Sean had said he had grown up a lot – and wasn’t scared of anything anymore.

Anything anymore included the Old Fergus, even if Weston couldn’t remember if yesterday had been the full moon or not.

It didn’t matter, he wasn’t scared.

“We’re playing a match!” he announced, not remembering Jimmy’s instructions not to tell anyone. Bah, the – not that much – older boy wasn’t here to hear! He had ran past the Old Fergus without answering anything. Weston wasn’t a snitch, and wouldn’t tell Jimmy’s mama when he’d see her, but he could have been, and then Jimmy’d have been very sorry indeed.

The Old Fergus opened his arms wide, moving them as if he were a chicken, and the image made Weston press both his palms against his mouth, trying to stifle a giggle. “Ah! A match. You’re goin’ to win, right?”

Weston nodded, secretly pleased the old man sounded so sure. Maybe he wasn’t mean at all, after all, and Sean and his friends were the one who were scared. Ha, when he’ll tell them, maybe they’ll let him come with them, next time they leave the house during the night, to go fight. “Of course! I’m the fastest,” he added, even though Father William had said it wasn’t good to brag, last Sunday.

Weston thought it wasn’t bragging if it was true.

“That you are!” the Old Fergus said. “I’ve seen you run, the other day, you looked like you were goin’ to fly off the ground.” The old man smiled again, looking over Weston’s beaming face and puffed chest. See, that wasn’t bragging at all. “Your parents must be proud. You’re one of Grainne’s boys, ain’t it?” he asked, taking a look at Weston’s face. “The little one?”

That last question made Weston’s mouth twist slightly. Little, him? He wasn’t. Not any much more that he was… what was it… pretty, yes. Anyway, Weston hadn’t liked it, that they said he was that. It had made his sister cry, and then his papa had said the way things were going, they were going to send him away, to Father William. It was quite scary, and Weston didn’t want to go away from his family ever.

Thankfully, Papa hadn’t mentioned sending Weston away since that day, and so Weston hoped he had forgotten it.

He didn’t like being called little either. Old Fergus must be confounding him with his little brother. “Bairre can’t run. He’s hurt.”

“Ah yes! The ladder incident, I remember. You say he can’t run anymore? Poor boy.”

He couldn’t. Sean or Papa had to carry him everywhere he went, now, but they had said it was a blessing Bairre had even survived. Weston didn’t remember it; he had been too little when it had happened.

“That’s all there is? I thought she had more.”

“Well there’s Sean.” There had been Connor and Finnbar, too, who had both been older than Weston, but who had died years ago, and who Weston didn’t really remember either. And there had been the other baby, who had been born at the same time as his little sister Caoimhe. That one had died, too, without Weston really seeing him – they had been born during the night, and he had been sent to spend it at Jimmy’s house, with his brothers and sisters. Other than that, there was only Sean, him and Bairre left, to be Grainne’s boys. And Weston wasn’t the littlest of the three.

“Yes, Sean. Him, I know, he comes to help me with the wood, for winter.”

Weston felt his eyes widen. Sean, helping the Old Fergus? Why hadn’t he told him? He could’ve helped too. He certainly helped Papa when it was time to gather the wood for winter. It didn’t sit well in his tummy, that his brother would think him too scared to come with him here.

“He’s not a talkative boy, that’s for sure, that one,” the Old Fergus continued, not noticing Weston’s pout. “Not like you. But, I’m not goin’ to keep you here longer. You have a match to win, after all. Here,” the old man gestured for him to come closer. Weston did so, gulping, but willing himself not to be scared anymore. Sean wasn’t. “For good luck, alright?”

Weston peered inside his hands, his mouth opening in wonder when he glimpsed the small, sweet-smelling bar of dark crystallized honey.

Because, yes, Weston remembered now, the Old Fergus had bees in his house, bees who would sting you all over until you fell asleep and woke up slowly simmering in Old Fergus’ late wife’s caldron. That was the real story Micheál had told him.

He raised his eyes to the old man, seeing his crinkled eyes, wrinkled but smiling almost mischievously. He wasn’t scary at all, Weston thought, beaming and saying his thanks. In fact, he was even nice, even if the lack of teeth could be considered scary – but only to the very little boys Weston decided, which he wasn’t a part of anymore.

“There,” Old Fergus patted at his hair with his heavy hand, the way all old persons did. “You’ll tell Grainne she raised a nice boy, alright?”

“Alright.”

“Now go play, go.”

Weston nodded, smiling one last time before pocketing the candy to safety and running to the clearing Jimmy had told them the match would take place. He wasn’t the last one to arrive. Big Connor’s sisters always took turns and turns to find flowers or squirrels, even in the middle of December when everyone knew there weren’t any flowers and animals were sleeping.

He walked to where Jimmy and his friends were talking all together, standing in a circle with the ball in the middle of them. Weston eyed it with envy before shaking his head and lifting his eyes up to the other boys. They were all tall, and older than him, but Weston was big, now, he was ten, unlike the last time he had played with Jimmy and his friends and everyone. And he didn’t want to be sent to play with the little ones, when Jimmy and everyone were talking and playing much more funny games together.

“What are you doing?” he asked, in a loud and clear voice, so he was sure they couldn’t pretend they didn’t hear him. They did that, sometimes, and while Sean always told him not to let himself be annoyed by “little twats” – although Weston had express forbiddance to repeat the words in front of mama – and that he was better than them, anyway, Weston couldn’t really agree.

Sean was bigger than all of them – he was nearly twenty, twice ten, so twice Weston’s age – and didn’t understand why Weston wanted to be included in their funny games and play with them.

Jimmy had used to play with him, when Weston had been a little boy and followed his mama around, even when she went some afternoons at Jimmy’s place, because she and his mama were friends.

The two of them would pretend they were thieves or princes or captains who fought off the invaders and won, or they would be wizards and create potions. There had been even some times, when Weston had spotted Jimmy playing with his little sister’s doll, because it had been raining too much and their mamas hadn’t wanted them to get sick playing outside, and he had sworn not to tell anyone when Jimmy had asked him to.

Weston hadn’t really understood – his sisters forced him to play with the doll all the time, and it could be fun – but they had spent that afternoon playing with dolls – Jimmy’s family had two of them, one which was a princess, and the other which was the prince. And Weston hadn’t told anyone that, not even Sean.

Then, one day, it had all stopped and Jimmy had declared Weston was too small – when it hadn’t been even true – to play with, and that only children played thieves or wizards. Weston hadn’t really understood – Bairre, Roisin and Caoimhe were little, not him – and even then, Weston still played with them all the time – and hadn’t liked being forgotten about for Jimmy’s new friends, who had been all older than him.

“Get off, Weston,” one of them said, and pushed him away from the circle they were forming. Weston didn’t fall, almost didn’t stumble, and that wasn’t enough to deter him. “You’re too little to play with us.”

“That’s not true!”

But the other boys barely glanced at the dark-haired boy Weston was pointing at. Little Edward – who Weston was pretty much sure was too scared to go near Old Fergus’ house – was the ball’s owner, and thus had been accepted in the big boy’s group two years ago, when he was the same age as Weston, and that was the most unfair thing ever, that they’d accept him when they didn’t Weston.

“Doesn’t matter. The girls are here. Come on! Let’s form the teams!”

It all started to go downhill from there, despite Weston’s team winning.

==--==

The rain kept on hitting his face, pouring down his hair and his neck and clothes, making him shudder with cold, and mingling with the tears that didn’t want to abate. Weston’s steps faltered as he glimpsed at last his home, at the end of the road. He sniffled one last time and dabbed at his right cheek with the back of his hand, taking care not to touch anything with his fingers since the mere feeling of rain pouring down upon them was enough to make another onslaught of tears build up in his eyes. It was useless to wipe them off, anyway, he thought to himself as he padded closer to home, his shoes making wet sloshing sounds on the mud, his face was wet from the rain as well. His nose was probably all red. Mama would worry he’d get sick, now.

Another hiccup, followed by another shudder that made his teeth rattle, even the one that was about to fall on the back, came as fresh memories flashed before his eyes, before Weston settled himself, and slowly pushed the door open to peer inside.

Sadhbh was at the table, Roisin, Bairre and Caoimhe were playing quietly on the floor and Mama was sitting in front of the chimney, one hand cradling her belly and another stirring the pot, and Weston forgot all about his determination of keeping the tears away because he wasn’t a baby anymore.

He didn’t need to say anything, barely shuffled inside the house and closed the door behind him, bringing Sadhbh and Mama’s attention on him. Sadhbh smiled at first as she put down the plates on the table, and Mama slowly stood up. “Where were you, now? We were worried. Now come closer to the fire, you’re soaking wet.” Mama paused as she watched him paddle closer, his hands behind his back to hide them, her smile faltering.

“I’ll go fetch a cloth,” Sadhbh said.

“Is something wrong?” Mama asked, looking at his twisted mouth and scrunched red nose.

Weston felt his shoulders shook as another hiccup escaped him, before he stopped trying to be brave and keep them in altogether. Sobs and hiccups prevented him from speaking, and another wave of fresh, warm tears flowed down on his cheeks. To his left, Roisin whimpered too, and Mama cooed at him, her frown slightly deepening, and pulled Weston for a hug, asking what was wrong again.

He didn’t know what to say, and the next minutes turned too blurry for him to do anything, even try to not cry.

In the middle of everything, Mama saw his fingers, shouted for Sadhbh to come here, Sadhbh saw them too, Papa and Sean – who had been looking for him when he didn’t come home – came back home with bothered faces, they saw it too, Papa’s face paled and he knelt before Weston as Mama was drying his hair with a cloth and shushing him, and Sean’s features twisted with anger when Weston flinched a little bit as Sadhbh dabbed at his nail-less fingers with something that stung.

“It’s going to hurt a little bit, yes, I’m sorry,” Weston heard her murmur. “We need to clear the blood, don’t we?”

Weston nodded reluctantly but resolutely, taking a look at his weird-looking fingers, feeling some bile build up again in his mouth, even after he had thrown up his midday meal behind- and oh, he hoped Jimmy’s ma won’t be angry at him for that.

Papa was still kneeling in front of him, by the fire, and Mama told him to move away, so that Weston could dry faster, because everyone’s other set of clothes were being washed for the night.

“Who did this, Weston?” Papa asked again, and this time Weston had calmed down enough to speak. “What happened?”

Sean walked into his field of vision, his face hard and angry where Papa’s was soft. Mama and Sadhbh were quietly talking between themselves, and Weston was switched from Mama’s lap to his sister’s, since the latter’s vision was too blurry to extract the last bits of badly ripped off nails that stuck to his skin.

With a small voice, looking longingly at his younger brother and sisters who had been told to go play a bit farther before dinner, and berating himself for wanting to go play football with Jimmy and his friends, this afternoon, instead of staying inside and playing with his siblings, Weston spoke.

“We went at the clearing,” he confessed, forgetting all about his encounter with the Old Fergus that he had wanted to tell Sean about, darting glances at his parents, not wanting them to be angry at him on top of it all, “to play football with Jimmy.”

Papa understood, then; he closed his eyes and sighed, and Weston felt sorry tears spill out of his eyes. “I’m sorry,” Weston croaked.

“Come on, what about, half-a-scoop? You lost, on top of that?”

Weston sniffled again. He hadn’t – Jimmy had taken him in his team, and they had won, but everything seemed very far away, as if it had happened last week, instead of a few hours ago.

“He doesn’t like you to call him that, you know it,” Sadhbh shushed him harshly and Weston gritted his teeth as Mama pulled at his remaining nail on his thumb – the thumb was the worst – and darn it, but it hurt. Papa was there, after all, and Sean, too, and Weston didn’t want them to be extra-angry at him.

“It’s alright, Weston,” Papa said.

“Well aye! He tells it as if it’s the worst mess up he has done, even worse than the time he- um, nothing.” He sent a quick sorry look at Weston. “I don’t see how playing football – even with Jimmy, and I told you half-a-scoop, that boy is a loser – has to do with anything worth-”

“All meeting of more than five persons are forbidden, Sean,” Papa said, harshly, “you know that.”

That made Sean stop his hands’ flailing and realization dawned on his face. He shot a quick look to Weston, and Weston didn’t know what he saw, but he certainly understood. “They’re kids!” he protested and, while Weston would’ve found himself wanting to be considered not as such by his big brother any other time, he found himself agreeing. It was unfair. They hadn’t done anything but play.

It wasn’t his fault they couldn’t do it without the presence of a representant of the crown or whatever. Weston didn’t want of that crown. And he didn’t want of a representant – especially the old one, with a tuft on his hat, who had pudgy hands and liked to call Weston pretty. Weston shuddered at the thought, leaning back on Sadhbh, who started stroking his hair.

“I know.” Papa sounded still defeated, even though he tried to smile when he noticed Weston was looking at him.

“Those sons of-”

“Sean!” Mama warned, softly, and Sean pressed his lips shut and turned to Weston.

“Jimmy said we could come to his home, and that his mama had jam and tartines. And at the house, there were- there were the soldiers.”

“English ones?”

Weston nodded. Duh, of course English ones. Talking English and everything. “They told us to stand in front of the wall, and lay our foreheads on it, hands on our heads.” Weston had been scared, then, and had hurried to obey. “Jimmy’s wall y’know the one which is-”

“We know, we know.”

“Then, they wanted our names, our ages and where our houses were and who our papas were and everything but-but they were speakin’ so fast.” His speech was cut by another hiccup, and his cheeks started to burn, both because of the headache that was slowly coming because of all his tears, and because of what happened after. “Little Edward understood, and Jimmy too, but-” But Domhnall hadn’t. The soldier had gotten angry, and he had spoken even faster, and even Little Edward hadn’t understood what he was saying, then – and everyone knew Little Edward’s papa was a sellout to the enemies.

It was a proof on how worried Papa and Mama were for him that they didn’t go back on him for his words about Little Edward and his papa.

So, Weston continued, despite his burning cheeks. “They made us pull down our breeches,” he muttered, and everyone gasped or tensed. Weston saw Papa’s eyes flare. “I didn’t do it,” he added, not really knowing if it was going to appease them. “So the soldier, he came to me, and he told me to do it.”

And Weston had been so angry, so righteous, not that scared anymore, and he had thought of Papa, and Sean, and the trips they did certain nights, with certain other neighbors, and of Mama, of the baby in her belly, of Sadhbh and her cut hair, of Bairre and his leg, and of Roisin and Caoimhe and their doll, and even of Muirne, Finnbar, Connor and the baby who had been born at the same time as Caoimhe even if they were dead, of the uncle and grandfather Weston had never known, who had died too but fighting against the English.

He had wanted to make them all proud. He hadn’t had any weapon, or anything, so he had done what he could. He had lifted his chin high up and straightened his back, without thinking back on how he had curled upon himself as they had pointed their rifles at them, as if it were an execution. He had thrown his best death glare – like the one Sean used – at the soldier and had answered. But not in English.

The soldier had been angry, furious even, just for this little thing – Weston knew it was forbidden, and that they were all supposed to speak English now, but like hell – sorry Mama – he, Weston, was ever going to ever speak a word of English ever in his entire life. After asking him again, the soldier had dragged him to the barn and they had all waited for someone to come, scowling at him and talking in their language, but too fast for Weston to understand.

Weston swallowed as he looked around him. Sadhbh had her cheek pressed at the top of his head and was softly rocking them both, Mama’s eyes were full of tears, and so were Papa’s, but he looked proud, underneath it all. Sad, but proud. Sean was pacing back and forth in a little corner, not even stopping the time Weston took to pause.

“The new man came, then – and he was a captain or something – and he had Little Edward with him, and Little Edward told him everything, in English, about my name and where our house was,” Weston spat, not listening when Mama said that it was alright. He could feel himself getting worked up again, and the pain in his hands diminished, until Weston was barely feeling it anymore. “So the captain, he told the other to have me still.” Weston had been kicking at the wooden door and glaring at Little Edward, to make him shut up, but it hadn’t really really worked, and thus they had held still his arms and legs. Weston had heard one of them, out of the four – the one who held his arm with the least strength and had laughed the most at Weston’s antics, after – tell another it was simply to scare him a bit.

Then, the captain had knelt before him, and had said something that had made the one on Weston’s right – the one he was thinking of, just before – tense and cough awkwardly. Weston hadn’t understood the words, they had been muttered and not really meant for him to hear, but he had understood “pretty” all fine.

That had been understandable enough.

I’m not pretty, he had wanted to shout, in English this time, so he was sure they knew it, but he had quickly remembered himself, thinking of Sadhbh. It was his only – literally his only – upstart on them, and he needed to be smart. He’d avenge her, and teach him a lesson, teach them all that they were the ones who were blind and stupid and everything.

His sister was pretty, not him. how was it so difficult to get, really?

So he played the idiot – it was easy, and the English always fell for it. That poor kid, son of a shepherd, wearing rags and with twigs in his hair. He was pretty but dumb, and they liked that.

And the older man had, too. Weston had seen it in his eyes, when he had roughly repeated the words and sounds barked at him. Some of those, he truly hadn’t understood, but most of them he had. “He told warnings, at first, and then one of them told him I didn’t understand, and I didn’t know how to speak English.”

“But you do,” Mama pointed out, frowning lightly.

Weston shrugged. He didn’t want to. “They all laughed at me, when he started saying I was stupid and then waiting for me to repeat it.” Weston had struggled not to laugh, then, for it had surely been funny. The old man had first said _You’re stupid_ , talking as if he was speaking to a baby, until one of them pointed out that, when Weston repeated it, he was in fact insulting back the captain, more than himself.

And Weston was the one they thought was stupid.

“So he said, ‘I am stupid’, so I could repeat it that way!” Weston giggled but, when he looked around, neither his parents nor Sean or Sadhbh were laughing, or even looking remotely amused. It made his tummy twist on itself with shame, somehow.

His voice lost its excitement for the last part, even though it had been the funniest, and he mumbled about starting to talk and looking pointedly – Weston had been so proud of that look, with his eyebrows raised and everything – at the man, expecting him quite obviously to do the same. The man had, stupidly, foolishly, not understood a word of what he had called himself and all the English, and Weston had cackled until the man finally understood by himself he was being made fun of.

“He was… mad,” Weston said, and then looked at his hands which Mama had wrapped in fresh cloth. He kept quiet the part where he had used the other soldiers’ distraction at their captain pulling out the thing he’d use to yank at Weston’s nails to try and claw the man’s eyes out, which had spectacularly failed.

Mama dabbed at her eyes, while Sean threw his fist against his palm, making Weston startle and Caoimhe cry. Papa kissed his forehead and apologized, before he called everyone to eat.

Dinner turned up a complicated matter, and Weston huffed at least a dozen time between him sitting down on his stool and him managing to get his spoon of soup to his mouth, without spilling like a baby. His eyes burned from tears anew.

“I hate them,” he reaffirmed, kicking discreetly at the foot of a chair while no one was looking. Papa had gone to the barn, check on the sheep, Mama was putting the soup away and Sadhbh was putting his younger siblings to sleep. And Weston…

Weston hurt. His hands hurt, even when he tried not to move them. Every breath made his fingertips move against the rough cloth, thus every breath made it hurt. His chest hurt, too, from his crying. Right next to his heart, when he thought back on what happened. He had been scared, and it made him angry now, except being angry hurt as well, because he couldn’t tighten his hands into fists. His little toe hurt, too. He couldn’t do anything.

“Hate them all,” he added, frowning, pacing back and forth before the door. If only… If he were a bit bigger than he currently was, he could join Papa and Sean during the nights. He could help them all, _us all_ , get revenge. He ran fast, and knew how to aim. “I’ll kill them all,” he promised, finally, muttering the vow under his breath, his eyes stinging.

“Weston.”

Mama’s call made him jump, and his mouth twisted in a grimace. He lifted sorry eyes to her, not knowing for how long she had been listening to him mumbling, his shoulders raising to his ears. Mama’s gaze was disapproving, and Weston couldn’t help but feel his brows furrow a bit.

“They’re English,” he protested. Sean said that because they were English, it meant they were bad. That they had come here without being invited, and that it was their duty to get them out feet first, back where they came from. That as long as there was one still fighting, they hadn’t lost. Weston had heard him say so, one night he had only pretended to sleep. “And they’re mean.” He lowered his eyes to his bundled hands, and Mama sighed.

“I know,” Mama whispered, sounding sad. Anger flew anew in Weston’s body, at the English for making his mother sad, on top of it all. “But it doesn’t mean you should be this angry at all of them.” He spluttered. “What they did was bad, of course,” Mama continued, after wrapping her arms around Weston and helping him on her lap, tucked against her belly. “But we should remember it was only a few of them. There are other English who are nice, just like there are people like us who are mean.”

Despite his best will to believe her, Weston pouted dubiously. He had never met English people who were nice, while all of their neighbors were nice. Jimmy’s mama always let him have some tartines, and even the Old Fergus gave him a bit of honey, this afternoon. And the Old Fergus had been supposed to be mean.

“You think?”

“I know it,” Mama answered, smiling down at him softly. “And you’ll know it, someday.”

Weston spent the night thinking about Mama’s words, not paying attention to Papa and Sean and Jimmy’s papa and one of the neighbors coming and talking next to a candle for hours. Come morning, he nodded at her, shrugging. “I suppose Little Edward is mean, too.” He still had trouble picturing any English as even remotely nice.


	2. The Leap of Faith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the new chapter!  
> Same warning than the previous chapter - the romance is still not here at all.  
> Specific tags applying for this chapter are:  
>  **Xenophobia**  
>  and great, great, great **historical innacuracy** (because trains didn't exist in that form in Ireland in the moment the story is about to take place, and they're supposed to be in a train (I don't think these kind of actions that led to the situation depicted in the chapter happened either - this is hella dramatized / fictionized) because it needs to be a rather-fast (faster than caravans or by foot) mean of transport for a group of persons.
> 
> Anyway, if you're interested, I hope you enjoy the chapter :)

The loud clangs that had worried Weston and Papa so much when they had gotten on weren’t as scary anymore, once they got used to them.

They still prevented Weston from sleeping, but the small interstices near his eyes told him it wasn’t night yet. They had been put there last night and told to wait here, all of them. Even Mama and his sisters. There were also some families that lived not far from them – Jimmy’s, and Big Connor and his sisters’, and, if Weston was honest with himself, everyone that had gone to play football, two weeks ago, at the clearing.

Sadhbh was fiddling with the ties of the bundle Sean had managed to save, the tears dry on her cheeks now, and Weston was envious. Both at her capacity of fiddling or moving her fingers, and at her spot. He hadn’t been allowed to come near the bundle, or open it to look at what was inside, just like Bairre, Roisin or Caoimhe. That bundle, and the clothes they currently had on their bodies, it was all that they had, now. All that was left. Weston’s eyes stung at the thought, and he pressed closer to Papa’s side, seeking a bit of comfort.

The English – because it had been the English, of course, Sean had said – had barged into their house, last night, in the middle of sleeping. They had woken them all up, even Caoimhe, and told them to get out. It had been Papa who had told them to dress properly and put on their shoes and all they wanted to keep in the bundle. Weston had understood why he had said that when the English had ordered them to stay put, once they were out of home. Weston had then watched, watched and stayed put, as they threw lightened torches and burned everything down to the ground.

The house, the table, the barn, the sheep, everything.

They had gone away before the fire had finished burning. Weston didn’t even know if Mab got enough time to run away. He hoped their dog would wait for them, for when they’d be back, and hadn’t been sleeping in the barn, with the sheep, as she tended to do, sometimes. “How are we gonna built everything again?” Weston had asked Papa, then, but Papa’s eyes had turned sad and he had changed the topic, so Weston hadn’t pressed more.

No one had talked much during their long walk, and so after a time, Weston had kept his questions to himself, too. He even shushed one of Roisin’s, before Sean could, and had kept on walking silently, entertaining himself with mimicking Sean’s steps or singing just low enough no one would hear it.

It hadn’t made the time fly faster, or distracted him from the pain flashing in his feet and up to his legs, after some time. But he had sung all the songs he knew of, smiling back at Mama when she’d catch one mumbled word or two.

Then, after hours and hours and hours of walking, they had reached the train. It was a real one, and Weston had never seen one before, so it had been quite impressive, but at the time he had been more worried that he couldn’t see Sadhbh anymore, and that no one were telling him where his sister was as they were all told to get in the large box.

They had waited, then, Weston enjoying the relief of not having to stand on his legs and feet and walk. Sadhbh had come back, crying and dragged here by a few English soldiers, but otherwise unharmed as far as Weston could see. And a couple of hours later, the clang sounds had started as the train had begun to move.

To where, Weston didn’t know. More away from home with each passing clang, that was all he could guess. His tummy was all twisted up.

“What’s wrong, half-a-scoop?” Sean asked, from where he was sitting next to Sadhbh, with Bairre between his legs.

Weston shook his head, lowering to hide his face beneath his hair, thinking quickly. No one was showing they were worried, no one was showing they were scared; Weston wouldn’t either. He wordlessly just raised his hands, that were still bundled, though not that tightly, because Mama didn’t have that much clean cloth now, around his fingers.

Weston had been a good boy, and hadn’t looked at how his fingers and his nails – that would grow back, Papa had promised – looked like, now, even when it itched. And it itched badly.

“Does it hurt much, still?” Mama asked, after coughing a little, clutching at her belly.

Weston shrugged then. He couldn’t really complain, not anymore. He had, a little bit, during the past two weeks, because it had, especially in the beginning; the hurt had blended with the shame and the worry that something bad was going to happen to his family, because of him. It had become an inexplicable mess in his head, and Weston hadn’t known how to properly express it, besides telling his parents that it hurt. They hugged him and told him not to worry, and that everything would be fine, and it was enough for the hurt to go away.

But now, he couldn’t complain, no. Not when his hands weren’t the worst thing that had happened to them.

They didn’t have a house anymore. They didn’t have livestock, they didn’t have the garden, Roisin didn’t have the new dress she had been working on, for her doll. Weston had overheard Papa tell Sadhbh not to worry about it, but the fearful face Sadhbh had pulled, and the way she had hold back from crying, though she pretended it was because of her cheek aching, hadn’t calmed Weston’s worries at all.

Mama was hurting, as well, because of the baby inside her tummy. Her face was pale and Weston had been forbidden to wake her up by talking too loudly when she was sleeping. Papa was, too. One English soldier had shot his foot, and he had had to be carried to the wagon they were in, now. Papa hadn’t moved since then, and his breathing had turned louder and louder with each passing hour, though no one commented on it, so Weston didn’t either.

Sean had been hit in the leg, because he didn’t walk quick enough, as he was carrying Bairre on his back, because Papa couldn’t, and had ended the journey limping. Sadhbh, Weston didn’t know what truly had happened to her. Since she had come back to them, however, she had been crying and shuffling around, as if she was hurt, too. Weston had been slapped and spat in his face and one of them had pushed on the tip of his fingers when Weston had tried to kick them in the shin.

His nose had bled a little bit, but Weston had dabbed at it with his shirt sleeve when Mama hadn’t been looking, and no one had noticed it.

Every so often, an English soldier passed in their wagon, and Weston made sure to glare up at them all the way, since Sean was sometimes preoccupied by other things. After the first three, Bairre had imitated him each time, and Weston noticed the English passed more and more quickly amongst them, until the last time they had, where they had barely glanced down.

No one was talking anymore. Weston had been, at first, mostly wondering out loud what was happening, and what was this they were inside, and where they were going, and talking about that time, did y’all remember, where they had lost a sheep in the woods and Weston had been the one to find it, or that time he had talked to Old Fergus, all by himself, and it hadn’t even been scary at all.

But then, Roisin had asked when they’d be back home, because she wanted him to promise to come with her, to Old Fergus’ house, and everyone had tensed, and no one had been in the mood to listen to Weston anymore.

The whole wagon was entirely silent, except for the clang clang that echoed inside it every two seconds. Everyone was huddled together, sitting by families, and keeping quiet.

Which meant the sudden cry of “Look, there’s the sea!” was well-heard by everyone inside it, and especially by Weston.

He immediately straightened up, looking around until he noticed the standing person pressed against one of the moving wall of the wagon, and quickly being joined by everyone else, close or not.

Whirling his head around to look pleadingly at Papa, feeling the first wave of excitement – the most excitement he had ever, ever felt ever in his whole life – Weston jumping to his feet, staying crouched in case Papa would say no.

“Can I go, Papa, please?” he whispered at first, though his voice turned louder and higher with every word. “Can I? Can I? Please, please, please!”

Papa was frowning, but nodded, and in one moment Weston was standing and made his way amongst the people, their neighbors and some Weston had never seen before, to where the small crowd had gathered.

He waited a bit, but quickly begun to push and tap at everyone’s back to let him take a look, too, frowning more and more deeply every time he was blatantly ignored.

“Come on, fellas, lemme see!” he whined.

Weston tried jumping, but he was still too small to look over all those grown-ups’ shoulders. Then, he tried literally pushing his way between them, but he never managed to make any of them move.

“Wait for your turn, you!” one of them told him in middle of ooh and ahh of people who were tall enough to see, pushing Weston back so he stumbled. He glared at the stranger’s back, his fists tightening in that weird position they did because of the cloth wrapped in the middle of them, but at the moment Weston didn’t care much about it. He was about to punch his way, this time, so he could see, when strong arms pulled him off the ground.

“Oompf, half-a-scoop, you’ve eaten stones recently,” a rough voice said near Weston’s ear, and he kicked his legs in the air.

“I’m ten, now. Get me down, Micheál, get me down.”

Micheál was Sean’s friend. The only one, besides Sean, who called him this way, because he knew it grated on Weston and Sadhbh’s nerves, and he liked grating on both their nerves – he had told Weston so, one day. He also had the habit of carrying Weston around, as if he were a baby, ever since Sean had told him it especially grated on Weston’s nerves.

He finally put Weston back on the ground, but only after carrying him over where he had been sitting, Weston gathered, and only to push him down and make him sit on Micheál’s legs.

Micheál laughed when Weston tried to push him away. “What’s gotten you all angry, now? You look like a drenched kitten,” he added, laughing even harder when he tweaked at Weston’s nose.

“I wanna look at the sea,” Weston begrudgingly explained, not really listening when Micheál told him about how the sea wasn’t that nice. It was a big lake. But Weston wasn’t believing him totally anymore, especially since three hours ago or something, where he had told him they were going to get killed by the English. “Papa said you were lying, earlier,” he said, jabbing his wrist instead of his finger in the middle of Micheál’s chest. “We’re not going to die, and we’re not going to get transformed into buttons.” Sean had said it was impossible.

“Not everything, no. But they’re still going to pull out our teeth, and make buttons out of them, to close their fancy clothes with,” Micheál still said, his fingers trying to grasp at Weston’s front teeth, the way he had earlier. It made Weston froze, the same terror at Micheál’s words taking a hold of his body.

No, no, no, he told himself. Papa had said it wasn’t true. Weston believed more his Papa than Micheál, who always liked scaring him and telling stories that weren’t true, like the time he had said there was a crocodile living in the river – which was nothing more than a big lizard, Papa had told him, after Weston had refused to go wash himself for weeks, and which didn’t live here, anyway.

“That’s even true for your pretty face, Weston,” Micheál concluded, tweaking Weston’s nose a second time and laughing when Weston twisted his face in the ugliest, scariest grimace he knew, before kicking him for good measure. Sure, Sadhbh was too far to have heard him, but still.

Micheál was an idiot.

Weston left him to go back to Papa and Mama, dragging his feet lightly on the ground because he was sad he hadn’t managed to see the sea and he didn’t know when will be his next chance. Mama, for example, was way older than Weston was, because she was his Mama, and had never ever seen the sea ever. It was the first time she, and Weston too, was out of town, way, way out of town, and home too.

“Don’t be sad, little one,” she said softly, smiling even though it looked like it hurt her, “we’ll have another chance soon.”

“Of seeing the sea?” Mama nodded, and it looked like a promise. Was it a surprise? No, it couldn’t be, Weston immediately thought. Why would the English be a part of it? And why would Papa or Mama want home burned down? It couldn’t be a surprise, but then why was Mama smiling? “When? Where?” Why was Mama smiling and looking sad?

Were they truly going to die? Weston turned around to try and see Papa’s face and guess from there. The pained look sent a shiver down Weston’s spine. They were. Micheál was right.

“In a few days, at most, I believe, my love,” Mama said with a sad smile but her eyes crinkling, pulling Weston out of his thoughts. “We’ll get to see whatever we wish to see.”

Mama turned out to be wrong, because mere minutes after she spoke, as Weston was listening, half-bored, to Papa and Sean grumble at Micheál after Weston told them what the older boy had told him, trying not to pay attention at the small crowd still gathered around the interstice to peek at the sea, his gaze caught a gap, wider, bigger than the one on the other side of the wagon. One not far from Weston.

One just for him.

“Papa, can I go look?” Weston asked, but truly whispering this time, so that no one could get there before him until he got to see, pointing at the gap.

“Be careful not to fall,” Papa said, and Weston nodded and promised to be careful before he shimmied himself to the gap.

Papa had told him that because this one went from top to bottom, and was large enough that Weston could pass himself through, if he really wanted it.

Weston gasped as the cold air whooshed past his face and his eyes found what could only be the sea. Micheál had been wrong, just as he had thought, and he smiled with relief. It was big, immense, and dark grey, but it looked amazing, water as far as the eye could see, to the end of the Earth. It was beautiful, and it made Weston’s breath catch in his throat just looking avidly at it.

“It’s there!” he shouted, hoping his family could hear him. Now, Weston didn’t care much to have the gap just for him. He looked just briefly behind his shoulder, to them, but no one but them seemed to pay him the least bit of attention. Papa, Mama and all his siblings were looking at him, except Caoimhe who was sleeping, smiling or looking envious or scared, in Mama’s case. Weston beamed at her, trying to promise through his eyes that he wouldn’t fall.

He lost himself gazing upon it, smelling deeply – it smelt different, though Weston couldn’t pinpoint how or why, with all the wind that flew in his face. He tried to describe what he was seeing to Mama and Sadhbh, mostly, but stopped when Sean stood up to come behind him, to look too and then tell back better.

“Can you see?” he asked, looking up, his head upside down, to Sean’s face. Weston giggled at the funny sight and leaned back against his brother, moving his grip from the frames to Sean’s arms. Sean pushed the gap wider, and Weston tightened his hands on Sean’s arm as he bent over, just for a minute, to see better. The train had taken a turn, and now a forest was hiding most of the sea that Weston could see, but Sean was taller. He could see better. Farther.

“How about we play a game?” Sean offered, instead of answering, but Weston perked up at the prospect, his feet immediately bouncing with excitement. A game, now that was a swell idea. They had had nothing to do since they were told to be in that wagon, except for playing with Roisin and Caoimhe’s doll, or braiding their hair – which Weston had done, thrice – or singing songs with Sadhbh. He had become bored a few hours ago, but hadn’t said anything because he hadn’t wanted Papa to scowl at him the way he had when Bairre had whined about being bored, earlier.

“Sure! What kind of game?” he whispered-shouted, so that Sean could hear him above all that wind.

“Well, the first who reach the ocean wins. Alright?”

Weston felt his shoulders drop with disappointment. That wasn’t a game they could play now, and he didn’t want to wait. “Alright,” he still mumbled, looking down and leaning even more heavily against his brother.

He felt Sean’s big hand ruffle at his hair. “There are the rules: you can’t stop, can’t look back, not until you’ve reached the ocean,” he added, his hand moving from Weston’s hair to his shoulders, as Weston frowned lightly. Those were strange rules. Everybody knew they shouldn’t stop if they wanted to win a race. Most of all, Sean spoke like the game was beginning now. That was impossible. “You need to run as fast as you can, faster than you ever did. And you can’t get caught; you understand? Can you do that?”

Frowning deeply, Weston huffed. “I’m the faste-”

“I know. Just. Get to the ocean, alright half-a-scoop?” Weston moved to turn around and look at Sean’s face, because things were really starting to get strange, but Sean’s hands on his shoulders kept him facing forward. He understood, then: they’d have a race as soon as they’d get off the train, to let everyone rest a bit and recover from them being hurt, and the first one would win – which will be him, of course, Sean may be ten whole years older and the big brother, but Weston was good. He knew best how to climb trees and run fast. Weston nodded. He didn’t mind winning; it would be fun. “Don’t get caught,” Sean added another rule, “no matter what you hear, run. We’ll be right beside you.”

All of a sudden, a woman screamed and Weston felt himself fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter "safe" summary: After having to leave their house, Weston ends up being separated from his family and left on his own.
> 
> I'll post the next one (which is the last one in the backstory part of the fic) next week, like that we'll leave the non-romance behind and then I'll go back to the 1 chapter every two weeks I mentioned in last week's ending note.


	3. As the Long Night Begins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the third chapter. A tough and long one, but I didn't want to cut it in half and kinda postpone the rest of the story.  
> Chapter's specific tags are:  
>  **Xenophobia  
>  Minor characters deaths**  
> And the mention of **pedophilia**  
>  As for the past chapter, I'll leave a one-sentence, trigger-free summary in the end note.

“Ouch!” The whining sound spilled from his lips as Weston finished his tumbling down on his tummy, face in the mud. He spared a thought and a grimace at what Mama would say when she’d see his clothes dirtied this way, but it hadn’t been his fault, he had-

Weston wiped at his eyes and jerked his face up to the top the hill, but the train was already gone, the clang clang drifting far away, but coming closer and closer to every other sound as well.

It was only when he heard someone far off shout “One of them escaped!” that he remembered the game. Weston sprung to his feet and started to run, on the opposite direction. As fast as he could, faster than he ever did, just like he promised Sean. He didn’t stop to catch his breath, or to look back to see where Sean and his family were, not even when he stumbled and lost a shoe in the process. Never stopped, trusted they were right behind him, just like his brother had said they would. He wanted to win, after all. Darting around trees, crossing a river to trail off the dogs the English had unleashed, the sound of his steps muffled by the soil and the grass, he ran.

The speed made a giddy smile appear on his lips, each step sending a pulse of even more energy in his body as he felt like he would, literally, really, fly off the ground, half-running and half-leaping as he did. The ocean was close, he could smell it in the air, a freshness unlike anything he had even smelt before, purer than the smell of grass after rain, or the one of sheep’s milk. It smelled like freedom, like victory. He kept on running, giggling a little when he heard the dogs and shouting of the English drifting away.

Past the forest and to a village, grass transformed into pavement, slippery with the mud stuck at his bare foot and shoe, slowing down a bit to find the way to the ocean. and he only stopped when he finally reached it.

Weston leaned over the stone bridge, gazing down at the dark grey water and finally catching his breath. No one was here yet, he had won. Immediately, Weston looked at the large clock on the church, trying to remember the position of the hands so he could tell them to whoever would come first and, more importantly, last. The bridge was situated near the forest where he came from, and, if Weston squeezed his eyes appropriately, he could make out the tall hill where the train had been. This was in the best spot to watch out who would be the second, and so Weston stood there and waited.

He waited.

And waited.

He had no idea exactly how much time had passed, but soon the sun was setting down and everyone was going inside their home and he was shivering, the sweat on his skin having dried and turning cold with every gust of air coming from the sea – and there were a lot. He had spent the night and the better part of the day inside the wagon, and had arrived at the ocean when the big hand had been on the… well on the number before where it was now, that was for sure.

But then, Weston was nearly sure Sean would be the one arriving second – he had been the only one standing up and right behind Weston, after all, and would’ve jumped just after him. Sean had Bairre to carry over, as well, and his leg had been hurt, though, that was why he was a little bit slow. Weston grinned as he promised himself to tease his older brother for all the time he had needed, once he’d be there.

More time passed, and Weston ended up being on his own, at the bridge. His hands started to itch again, but Weston didn’t cave in and didn’t scratch. Mama wasn’t here to see, but he would tell her as soon as she’d arrive, too, and she’d be proud of him. He had only ever scratched at them once, very badly, because he didn’t have any nail at all and unless he used the ones he had on his toes, he couldn’t scratch anywhere. It had hurt so much he had promised Mama he would never ever do it again without her having to scold him.

He was starting to be hungry, however, and wished he had be the one carrying the bundle. He hoped whoever had ended up carrying it wouldn’t be too angry at him, and would let him have a bit. He had seen Sean put a jar of apple marmalade in it, before the English burned out their farm and forced them to go and walk in the middle of the night, and Bairre loved apple marmalade, but Mama would have told him not to eat everything, or else he’d have a tummy ache, Weston was sure.

Weston waited, walking up and down a little path he had imagined, where pavements were rocks and the in-between was a fast-current river.

He didn’t want to go away and miss the second’s arrival, as well as all his family’s, but, at the same time, being on his own there, in the dark and so far from home was starting to be scary. Finally deciding that he’d rather get a good scolding from Papa for worrying him and warm himself up, he left his special-spot and entered the village.

It wasn’t different than the one he and Mama sometimes went to, except bigger and with more houses within it. The main place was bigger, too, and the church looked as well, though Weston stepped back and scrunched his nose with distaste when he realized it was one of the English’s ones. He tried not to get scared at the thought of it being an English town, and mostly managed it. Some houses there didn’t look like houses, with many many people inside them and some women with strange shadowy faces that smiled weirdly at him when he peeked through the window, waiting outside the walls.

Weston knocked at some doors, but every time the people there sent him away even after he explained that he was waiting for his Papa and Mama, but it was cold there and could he please go near the fire to warm up a bit?

People there had obviously never heard of charity, and Weston would have commented to himself that, had it been any other moment.

He ended up eyeing the tattered blanket, on the ground, in a small alcove made by a stone wall of the house that wasn’t a house. He sat there, shielded as best from the cold wind and warmer than if he had simply stood near the fountain in the middle of the place, with his shirt and Sean’s old woolen coat and his breeches and his single remaining shoe.

Weston had his head burrowed in his knees, and his arms hugging his own legs when a hand shot out of nowhere to smack him on the back of his head.

“Ouch!” he cried out, though this time it had truly hurt, jerking his face up to glare at the man standing over him.

“Get off, you little shit! This is my blanket, and my spot! Get off, get off!”

Weston scrambled to his feet in order to avoid a second slap the man prepared to land on him again. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I thought it was to no one.”

“A blanket in the street? You thought it belonged to no one? Are you dim?”

“I don’t have one,” Weston said, gritting his teeth and swallowing back the words he wanted to tell, about how he wasn’t an idiot, he had just never slept in the street before, and will never again, since Papa and Mama and everyone will be at the bridge tomorrow, he added to himself. “Can I share it with you, sir, please?”

The man, who didn’t look much older than him at all, if Weston was honest, though it was night, and his eyes were blurry with tiredness, scoffed. “Well that ain’t my problem, ain’t it kid. Now, shoo, shoo. Go bother someone else. Your parents, for example.”

“They’re not here. But they’ll get there tomorrow.” For sure. “It’s just for one night, please, sir,” he added, not paying attention to how the man had huffed at Weston’s affirmation that his parents would be here tomorrow, as if Weston had been joking.

He hadn’t. That was what Sean had said. We’ll be right behind you. That… that meant they’ll come.

Weston had simply been too fast.

“I don’t give a fuck about your folks, kid. I don’t do charity, and especially not to people who won’t survive the night,” the man added, after looking up and down Weston’s body. “It’s dog-eat-dog, here. Now get off, or I swear you’ll really be meeting your parents tomorrow.”

Weston refused to believe for a long time.

For the following two days, he would wake up with the first rays of sunlight and Crook’s muttering and grumbling next to him, and go wait for his family at the bridge. He only left once, after the midday meal, because some people threw their leftovers in the street and Weston was hungry. Pieces and bits of mutton over a bone, rotten carrots or potatoes or unwanted cabbages, he ate everything he managed to find, giving himself a tummy ache.

Crook still refused to share the blanket or the alcove, and so Weston spent his nights pressed against his bout of wall, as close to the other man as the other man allowed him to without pestering too much. For those following two days, he prayed for his parents and everyone to come at last, before he’d turn in an ice cube, the way Crook had told him happened to little boys who were too annoying for their own good.

He always ended up falling asleep crying, and that annoyed Crook as well. The other man had told him his family had died, that the English killed every fighter and their families, because this was England, now, and people were stupid not to accept that, and were only getting themselves killed stupidly.

Weston had clung to Papa’s reassuring words and explanation as hard as he could, had believed in them with all his might because they were Papa’s. If Papa said something, then it was most certainly true. He wasn’t Sean or Micheál who sometimes said things that weren’t. He was Papa, and Weston was ready to admit the whole world was wrong, everyone in it, if it meant Papa was right. But one day passed, and then two, and then three, and still his family hadn’t come to him.

At first, he had thought it was his fault, and that he had fallen. But then, he had remembered more clearly what had happened – although it had been really fast. He couldn’t have fallen, Weston concluded, that was just impossible. He had promised to Papa he was going to be careful, and had clung to the frames, and then to Sean. No, the only explanation was that Weston had somehow jumped. Hadn’t understood Sean’s game well and had thought it was beginning right now, instead of not.

And so he had jumped, and left his family in the train. To die.

They didn’t come to him because they had been prevented to do so. Forever.

Weston knew it. In the very bottom of his head he knew it, but still he hoped. It couldn’t be, it simply couldn’t, it was as easy as that. No one could kill Papa, or Mama, or his siblings, not even the English. Mama had said… Weston remembered Mama had said the English were just like them, and that there were good men and bad men, and more good ones than bad, all just like them. Even Papa had said it was true, when Weston had told him, one day he was thinking about it very hard and tried to picture it and Papa had asked about it.

That third day, he hadn’t left his spot, against the wall, for the entire day. He felt too tired, too weak to stand up and drag himself to the bridge, only to drag himself back there for the night. He was hungry, his tummy hurting now instead of grumbling all the time, and his eyelids heavy, no matter how long he had slept, that night.

Papa was dead. Mama was dead. Sean, Sadhbh, Bairre, Roisin and Caoimhe, too. Everyone was dead, he thought as a sob rattled out of his chest. They had flown into heaven together, and had met again with Weston’s siblings who had died when he had been a little boy. Muirne and… and… Connor and Finnbar and his baby brother who hadn’t had time to be baptized.

He hadn’t cried much, had felt too tired to do so.

They were dead and Weston didn’t know what to do. Find food during the day and stay warm at night. The more he thought about it, however, the more it dawned on him that he had none of the first, and neither fully was of the other.

It had been warmer that day, and Weston hadn’t shivered that much, but he had heard Crook mutter about how it bade for a cold night in less than a week, if the weather during the day was as mild as this one.

Weston had mumbled about how he was grateful he didn’t have to spend the day shivering and trembling and fearing his toes and nose and ears and fingers would fall off his body. One night in the future seemed very far.

He was so hungry.

Pained whines were what woke Weston up, that third night – or perhaps it was the evening, still? At first, he had thought they came from him, and Crook was kicking him the way he had started to, to wake him up when Weston’s whimpering and nightmares kept him awake.

But it hadn’t. Weston was huddled against the wall and had been sleeping, a deep and dream-less slumber with how tired he felt.

There were three men, loudly shouting and walking tilted and leaning against all kind of surface, kicking into something that let out those whines. He thought he heard Crook mutter a curse, and Weston raised his head, rubbing at his eyes as he frowned.

His eyes widened when they fell on the crouched figure curled on the ground and, for the first time since he came here, he felt properly awake, and almost strong enough to stand up. “Hey!” he called out, his voice shrill and clear in the almost quiet night. “Stop it!” It had the merit of immediately making the three men stop what they were doing, to turn around and walk toward him as Crook cursed him on ten generations.

“Got yourself a friend, Crook?” one of them asked, his voice slurring and almost stumbling over his own feet several times. Crook vehemently denied it, of course, sounding more scared than Weston had ever heard him, but immediately interrupted himself when the strangers spoke again.

Weston had quickly stopped listening to them, and they weren’t paying attention to him either. He was cooing softly at the whimpering dog they had been kicking, as it limped closer to the sound Weston was making. The dog yipped when its snout touched Weston’s bandaged hand before carefully sniffing it, constantly making a strange, strangled whine, unlike any sound Weston had heard a dog make, even the old one he and Roisin had fed from time to time, who was Mab’s friend. This one limped quickly away as soon as its snout had touched Weston’s wrist, following the length of the wall until it curled a bit farther away from Weston, and more from the men and Crook.

“So, what’s a girl like you doing on her own out there,” one of them said, as Weston had laid back down on the ground and was trying to go back to sleep. “Don’t tell me it’s the company that’s keeping you-” A hand had pulled on Weston’s shoulder and several things happened at the same time.

Weston with an offended gasp understood the man had been talking about him, the man saw Weston was not a girl, Weston let out a snarl and launched himself at the stranger, his fists ready to punch since his nails were still too small to reach the top of his fingertips, and more-or-less tightly wrapped. As he aimed for the legs, the man laughed out loud, very loudly and Crook murmured something Weston didn’t catch.

“By Jove!” the man said, still laughing. “That’s not a girl! Didn’t know you liked them this way, you old rat.”

“Didn’t know you liked them that young, Hugh,” Crook said, and Weston heard the smirk in his voice as the man – as Hugh – cupped his chin, his fingers pressing harshly to Weston’s cheeks as he immobilized Weston’s head.

“I like them pretty,” Hugh said, looking at Weston’s face in a way that made him shudder and his mouth turn down. Weston felt his eyes flare up with anger and would’ve have snapped at the old man he wasn’t pretty, not at all, and let him go, let him go, let him go, but his jaw was locked into place and he couldn’t move his face, which was tilted this and that way as Hugh kept on looking, a smirk on his face. The smirk died down, however, when his eyes darted to Weston’s right, back to where Crook was. Weston tried to look at the man, too, to ask him to help him, but he couldn’t see him without turning his head a little. “And don’t think I didn’t catch that, Crook. You have no right to call me by my name. You, however, can, pretty boy.” One of Hugh’s fingers tapped twice on Weston’s nose, but Weston couldn’t bit it away, even though he tried. It only served to make Hugh laugh, again. But Weston hadn’t said his last word, and was currently slowly trying to uncurl his leg from under him, to sweep at Hugh’s ankle. He kept on glaring up at the man, in the case that would suffice to keep him away. “Tell me, boy, you must be hungry.”

That made Weston stop, falter for one second as his eyes lost all their anger.

Hungry, oh yes he was. Enough that he’d let himself be called pretty by a bad-smelling man if it meant it would change, Weston decided immediately, even if his cheeks burned at the mere thought. He wasn’t pretty, but he’d let that man think that if it meant he’d eat.

“I am,” he said, his mouth pursuing in a weird way as Hugh kept on holding his chin and jaw and pressing his cheeks together.

Hugh smiled more wildly. Weston couldn’t properly see his eyes from where he was sitting, the man crouched over one of Weston’s leg. “Well, you’re a smart one, I’ve seen it straight away. So how about that. Come with me, and be a good boy, and I’ll give you three pence. Alright?”

Weston was about to say yes, but was stopped when one of Hugh’s companion made a weird sound in the back of his throat, almost as if he was going to throw up, talking about “doing it with a boy instead of one of the girls at the tavern, all this to economize two shillings” and making Weston wonder doing what, exactly.

His eyes narrowed as he saw something in Hugh’s face flicker as he asked the question. “Just, anything I’ll tell you. And I’ll give you those pence. Owen, shut up, you’re scaring the boy.” Hugh returned his gaze on Weston. “There’re lots of things, of good, nice, juicy food you can buy with three pence, boy. You’re a smart one, aren’t you? Be smart.”

Hugh was repeating this too often for it to be really true, Weston thought.

“I’ll do it!” Crook suddenly shouted when Weston took too long to answer. “I’ll do it, sir.”

“Who told you anything about it applying to you, Crook? I don’t want to fuck no rats. Shut up and learn your place.”

Hugh had spoken quickly, mumbling the words and facing away from Weston, but he had still heard most of it – the main thing, anyway. This wasn’t only being called pretty, was it? Papa wouldn’t want Weston to go with that man, not for all the three pence in the world.

He’d find another way to get food.

“No,” Weston said, feeling Hugh’s eyes snap back on his face, and frowning.

“No?” Weston shook his head in emphasis, smiling slightly when Hugh huffed and sniffed, as if he pretended he suddenly didn’t care. He stood up and went before Crook, looking at him intently before nodding. “Fine. We’ll see if you sing the same song tomorrow, boy, I can be patient.”

“The three pence, first.”

“Three? Certainly not, Crook, you’re way less pretty. One penny, and consider yourself nicely-treated.”

When Crook came back, not long after he left, he was walking strangely and looking sad, and he scowled at Weston as he sat down back on his blanket, even though Weston hadn’t used it.

He regretted not having accepted, the next day, and tried to change his mind with befriending the dog, who Weston called Fiona in his head, who hadn’t left her spot since the previous night. She was very different from Mab, the dog they had at home. It took an entire morning to get close enough to pat her head and, when he finally managed to do so, she kept on screaming – truly screaming, he had never heard a dog make that sound, even when Mab had pups one night – and curling tight upon herself. Weston had shushed her and kept on stroking her head and behind her ears with his bandaged hands until she understood it wasn’t hurting her.

She stayed close to him for the next two days, keeping him company and sharing the old piece of bread and what little meat he had found on old bones someone threw at him. Hugh came back, at night, but Weston always refused to go with him, even when it meant watching Crook win penny after penny and talk about how he was going to buy himself some ham, once he’d have enough saved.

In those days, Weston ate the bread and nothing much else, drinking the dark water from the fountain and from the rain, that afternoon it had poured. When three days had passed, however, he started to feel hungry again, the way he felt hungry a few hours after eating, except a few days after, once even the memory of the bread turned blurry. Yet there was nothing he could do. He had no money at all, and no land and seeds and livestock to grow potatoes and cabbages, carrots and leeks, or have a few chickens and goats.

Well, maybe there were some left at home, who didn’t burn because of the English, but Weston had no idea where home was. Or even if he would manage to walk back to it, with how little strong he felt.

And what if he left and his parents came back to him, only to not find him near the ocean, as he had promised? Sean had promised they’d be right behind him, all the time. Weston needed to keep on believing that, and stay where he was.

People passed by and didn’t look at him, and it was so cold Weston usually spent his days and his nights curled against Fiona, sharing their warmth. He told her stories, about his parents and his siblings, and Mab, his dog, and sometimes hugged her when the realization of where his family was stayed too long in his mind.

“You’re sure, boy?” Hugh asked that night, showing the three pence in front of Weston’s fuzzy eyes. “Still no? You look like you’d use some food, especially with the next night they say we’ll have. No one should want to spend it outside with an empty belly. Now what about that?”

Weston thought he heard Crook ask something, his voice urgent, as if something was important, but caught neither the question nor the answer, if answer had existed. He was busy trying to shake his head, again, at Hugh’s request, the coins not looking as tempting to him as they had the past three nights, with the promise of what they could buy. Weston’s mind was, now, too blurry and dizzy to think about promises of food. It simply saw those little metallic rounds. That weren’t food. Therefore it didn’t interest him at all.

Hugh ended up leaving with Crook, as he had for the past five nights, except he left closer and closer with each one, in such a manner that Weston now heard those short guttural grunts and whines and rustling of clothes that happened very not far from him.

“Your loss kid,” Crook said, his voice tight as if he was hurt somehow, when he came back a few minutes later. “You won’t survive next night without a blanket and some warmth.”

Weston had fallen asleep, then, and didn’t know whether Crook had kept on talking. He woke up with the sound of passers by walking next to him and the feel of Fiona’s tongue on his cheek. He had never slept this long, in the nine nights he had spent sleeping there.

It was for the best, Weston decided, firstly because he wasn’t home and didn’t have to help Papa take the sheep outside, and then because if the next night was as bad as Crook and Hugh and the people passing next to him said, then he needed all the sleep he could get. If he wanted not to sleep the next night.

As he blinked his eyes open, they immediately fell on a boy, facing him and standing next to the fountain, not far. The boy looked his age, but was well-dressed, with a new vest and a hat and everything, and Weston wondered for a second if it was Sunday, but, most importantly, he held a yellow brown, barely eaten brioche in his hands. Weston’s mouth watered just at the sight, and he could swore he could smell the bun from where he was sitting, on the other side of the village square.

He hadn’t eaten anything but that piece of burnt bread, two or three days ago, Weston didn’t know anymore, and his tummy twisted and knotted on itself with envy, as he watched the boy lifting the brioche to his mouth and take another tiny, tiny bit, chewing it slowly and then...

And then spitting it on the ground.

Weston coughed so hard he felt bitter bile in his mouth as tears went to stung his eyes. His hands reached forward and he cupped his palms together, toward the boy who was now rubbing at his cheek which had just been slapped by the boy’s father. “I’m not hungry anymore!” the boy whined, and the words came to Weston’s ears where they echoed in his mind as the boy got scolded by his father.

I am, Weston thought as he met the boy’s eyes, while his hands were still forward, shaking with the effort of keeping them that way. I am. Please. Weston mouthed the beginning of the word.

Food. He had never eaten a brioche before, but it smelled good. He remembered smelling it, once, near Christmas at the nearby village Mama had gone, sometimes. It had smelled so good, and Weston had watched another boy eat one, just like now, not wanting to be envious but being, nonetheless. But it had been too expensive to buy it, Mama had said.

By the will of something greater, the boy’s father turned around, and looked straight at Weston and Crook, who was still sleeping. His eyes found Weston again, taking in his posture and his begging hands, in his pleading, returned stare. His lips were thinly pressed together and he was looking a bit off-put, but he still took two steps forward, the boy following him.

“There, Matthew,” the man said, loudly – or maybe it was only Weston’s ears, who only listened to them talking. “Let’s give the rest to the gulls.”

It turned out to be the last hit, the last slap. Weston let out all his breath as if he had been punched as he watched the boy and his father and the brioche walk away, feeling his face twist as sobs began to rattle his chest.

His tummy hurt, his head and his teeth hurt too, his fingers itched, he didn’t feel his feet, and he was so hungry there were black spots dancing before his eyes. For a moment, he didn’t see the passers-by anymore, nor heard Crook’s complains that Weston’s crying had woken him up.

Weston closed his eyes and dreamt of eating, only to wake up while it was still day and find himself munching on his wrist, his teeth leaving little red marks on it and his tongue tingling with the taste and feel of sort-of warm flesh on it, as well as the bland one of the now dirty cloth that was still wrapped loosely – the way Mama had done it for the last time, days ago. Weston didn’t want to touch it. He buried his face in Fiona’s side to dry his tears and hide the hiccupping of his shoulders, rubbing his cheek and the tip of his nose against the warm body of the dog.

He was so hungry.

Sleeping had only seemed to waken it, instead of lulling it to a dull pain at the back of his mind. The boy and the brioche were gone, and now it was the afternoon. He was hungry, ravenous, famished.

Weston looked around himself, as if there was something, some meat or some bone or some grass to chomp at, something that wasn’t his own arm, that he would have missed the past days. Nothing. There was nothing, he sluggishly concluded after looking around several times. Nothing but stones and mud. Weston couldn’t eat stone; his teeth were too brittle for it.

Sobbing once again, Weston carefully unwrapped the bandage around his right hand, wincing and feeling warm tears spilling on his cheeks when bits of it ended up being stuck to the tip of his fingers and he had to pull it off slowly and carefully.

The sight of his nail-less fingers didn’t bother him, then, not as it had back home. The nails were back, a little bit, having grown back, just as Mama had promised. Weston tried not to think about how he was the one breaking his promise by messing with the bandages before the nails were fully back. He scraped between the stones on the ground, collecting as much as he could on his fingers, and gritting his teeth when his fingers came into contact with the cold and wet mud.

He closed his eyes and put his fingers in his mouth, sucking the mud off them while taking great care not to let his teeth even graze at the soft numb skin. The wet sloshy taste made him gag, but Weston forced it down, his hand already back to scooping as much mud as he could. It was as if a frenzy had taken hold of him. He was eating, there was something in his mouth, on his tongue, under his teeth that crisped, that was wet and good.

Weston ate and ate and ate. He ate without thinking, a repetition of movements that came back instinctually to him. He ate until the retching became too strong to ignore and fight back and he coughed up everything he had eaten, back on his left hand and the stones of the pavement, sobbing and crying and letting his head drop, even as Fiona was next to him, whining, her white eyes unseeing but concerned all the same, and licking at his face.

It hadn’t changed anything. Weston was still hungry, even more so, and now the mere idea of eating the mud back was enough to make him gag. Stupid, stupid body! Weston looked around, but there was still nothing. No magical basket of lamb, potatoes, and apple marmalade on tartines had appeared in the last minutes, while he was busy spitting out his food, like the boy had done this morning.

If he had had the brioche, however, he wouldn’t have spitted it out.

He tried to think, to find something else, that wasn’t his arm or the mud around him. He looked around. Not too far either, because the mere thought of standing up, or crawling to another spot, was enough to make him dizzy.

The solution came to him not long after, however, as his eyes zeroed on his own feet. His left one was white as snow, and Weston didn’t want to look too closely at the color of his toes; they still moved, which was sufficient for him at the moment. His right one, however, was still inside Weston’s shoe. He alternated the shoe between his two feet, so that one wouldn’t fall off.

But now he was hungry. And he needed to abate his hunger more than he needed his feet, Weston decided.

With trembling hands, burning eyes and bated breath, he pulled out the shoe, wincing at the way it stuck on certain part of his right foot. The shoe was muddy, and cold, but it was leather. Leather was meat, wasn’t it? Weston nibbled on the higher spot, feeling himself liking the taste better than mud, at least. The leather was thick, it was Weston’s winter shoes, after all, and the cold felt as if it had frozen, and Weston told himself it would stick to his ribs better.

He managed to cut off a small piece, and spent what looked like ten minutes chewing on it until he felt like he could swallow it. It felt dry, and tasted bland, but at least it washed away the awful taste of the mud.

“I wouldn’t eat it entirely, if I were you,” Crook said, at some point, once Weston had ignored his taunts at seeing him eat mud and then retch it all out, and then munch on his own shoe, “like a dog” Crook had said.

But Weston didn’t care anymore. Dogs were nice, and he liked Fiona, had liked Mab too, and would sometimes let her sneak inside the house when it was too windy outside, and the sounds had scared him, and then had scared his little sisters, at night.

He didn’t follow the other’s advice either. At first, he had told himself the same – just one bit, and then he’d keep the rest for tomorrow, but then he had thought back on the night, which promised to be cold, deadly even, and he had simply been unable to stop until his shoe was more than half-way eaten and Weston didn’t feel hungry anymore.

Still weak and dizzy, but not hungry. He almost cried at the sensation, having forgotten how it felt.

It was only a mere hour later, when Weston’s tummy started to ache and his eyes started to drop when the sun had only set a few hours ago, as the church bells rang nine hours, that he understood Crook’s words and wished he could go back in time, before he signed his own death sentence.

“We mustn’t fall asleep tonight,” he whispered to Fiona, who yipped her agreement back at him. “This is very important. I’ll watch over you so you don’t fall asleep, and you’ll watch over me, too. Good dog,” he stroked the top of her head, feeling reassured somehow, too. He turned his head to the right, where Crook was bundled under his tattered blanket, having once again refused to share it, even after Weston promised he wouldn’t steal it. “We’ll watch over each other too, right?”

“Absolutely not. I won’t feel sadder if you and your stupid dog die tonight,” Crook grumbled, his voice hoarse from disuse, and strong despite the cold. It was only nine, and Weston already felt cold. “I’ll get my quiet back, at least.”

“I’ll wake you up if you fall asleep,” Weston promised, still. Crook huffed and shook his head, looking one last time at Weston before turning away from him, pressing himself under his alcove.

The first hour, then, passed rather quickly. Weston murmured stories about his siblings to Fiona, pressed against her side to share body heat the way he and Sean had slept, sometimes, when it had been really cold, or when Weston had been really little and he had had a nightmare, or there had been a thunderstorm on that night. Weston even felt a bit daring, when the clock struck ten and he was still awake – the later he had ever been awake ever.

At one point, though, not much longer after the bell had rang ten o’clock, Weston felt his head drop once and then twice in what must have amounted to a minute, each time startling himself awake at the last time, his heart pounding with fright in his chest. “We mustn’t sleep, tonight,” he repeated to Fiona, and to himself, too.

He resumed the stories, speaking everything that came to his head, sometimes crying at some point of them, his eyes and head dropping and his words trailing off into nothing until he felt Fiona move a little, or whine a little, and startled awake again, smiling gratefully but tiredly at the old dog and pressing a kiss to its head. He changed to another story, fearing he would fall asleep if he stopped talking, yet no longer feeling himself do so.

Yet he did.

He couldn’t help himself; it was almost too strong for him. Fiona simply moving wasn’t enough to wake him up anymore, and the dog had to lick at his cheek and whine in his ear for his eyes to flutter open once more.

This time, Weston’s face was resting on Fiona’s side, the dog’s short fur tickling his nose and eyelids as Weston moved them. He wasn’t shivering; he didn’t feel either cold or hungry anymore. He was only tired, so tired. A small voice, far-away, whining at his ear, was telling him not to fall asleep, that they mustn’t sleep tonight, but Weston closed his eyes and curled his arm tighter against the furry body.

He dreamt, then. Strange sensations came to him, he was cold, and holding a wooden horse, and suddenly he was flying, his arms holding nothing. There was a fire, and he was put in the river, it was burning hot, and then it was cold, so cold Weston felt himself shiver and shake, yet unable to open his eyes, his mind lost between reality and sleep.

When Weston woke up, he was naked, inside a room. There were a fire burning near his face and the smell of meat and buttering potatoes reaching his nose, coming from near and awakening his hunger as well, making the bits and pieces of his shoe swarm in his tummy, and he was surrounded by warm water. An old woman gasped, her face breaking into a wrinkled smile, and opened her mouth to call for something, or someone.

In English.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter summary: Weston is rescued from a near-death experience by an old, English woman.
> 
> And this spells the end of the more backstory part. I hope you enjoyed it, anyway :)  
> See you next week!!


	4. New Life, New Everything, Old Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the new chapter!  
> We are leaving behind the first three - I mean, not really ever, but story speaking, a new life is beginning.

Weston blinked back tears for the umpteenth time and quickly swept at the carriage’s window, removing the fog his breath was leaving on it. He darted a quick look at Lord Cooke, to check the old man hadn’t noticed the tears – the old man hated tears, and especially on a man’s face, even though Weston was far from being a man. His shoulders relaxed minutely when it was clear he hadn’t.

Lord Cooke was dozing off, probably lulled by the carriage’s movements, his head resting on his wife’s shoulder. Lady Cooke was sitting facing Weston, her eyes engrossed in the reading of a small book, taking advantage of her husband’s rest and consequent inattention of her doings. Lord Cooke didn’t like women reading either, perhaps less than he liked boys crying.

Even after months of living with the Cooke, sharing their meals and their roofs, even though those roofs had been various inn’s ones, for their apartment had been in England, before they had sold it, Weston still found himself scared of Lord Cooke’s scowl and grumbling English voice.

The as-old Lady Cooke was different, Weston thought, his eyes going back to the window and resuming their avid drinking of the sights passing by them. She had been the one who had found Weston, on that night, in the street, when he had fallen asleep despite attempting with all his might not to. She had called a doctor and had warmed Weston in a bath, until he woke up. Then, she had ushered him to a plate of lamb chops and potatoes that Weston had eaten entirely and with appetite, even though she had been speaking English.

Weston hadn’t been above eating, even if it meant it was from the hand of an English woman, as it had turned out. He had glared at her, for good measure, as he munched on the food and took great care not to say a word – nor in Gaelic and nor in his own broken English Papa had taught him, because everyone had to speak English, now. That had gone as good as Weston could have imagined, until his brain had suddenly remembered Fiona’s absence, and he had blurted out his question, without a second thought.

Yet, nothing bad had happened. Weston had decided, in the following days and months, that Lady Cooke was the only English woman possessing kindness, somehow making up for every other English that lacked it.

On the contrary of everything Weston could have anticipated, Lady Cooke had called for a chambermaid, and asked her to tell him that he was safe here and asking for his name, repeating the words she had been speaking when Weston had been eating. He had understood the most of them, then, but it was nice to have confirmation of it.

He had planned on running away, back to safety, as soon as he’d have finished the plate in front of him, and despite the night not being ended yet, but the chambermaid convinced him otherwise, while she clucked her tongue and shook her head with disapproval.

“The Lord and Lady are nice folks, kid. Your mama wouldn’t have wanted you to be outside, sleeping in the cold, and in the middle of January. She’d have wanted you to survive, and to take your chance when it’s given to you,” she had told Weston when he had told her about his plan.

And so he had stayed. Had smiled at that Lady Cooke, had babbled some words in English, saying his name and asking about Fiona again. The Lady had told him, speaking slowly so Weston could understand everything, even though his mind started to feel drowsy again, about how she had found him, and how lucky he was to still be alive. “Your dog isn’t it?” she asked when he had wondered about Fiona for the third time. Weston had nodded, already knowing what she was about to say before she said it. “She died. We found you hugging her, and she was curled around you, but she was already dead.”

“And Crook?”

“The boy who was next to you? He was dead, too. Was he from your family?”

Weston had simply shook his head, trying not to cry at the mention of Fiona and Crook being dead, as well as his family.

She had given him warm clothes, too big for him, that belonged to her late son, she said, to replace the ones the doctor had to cut off of him, so frozen and thin and old they were, and his hands were bandaged once again by the doctor. They had thrown away both his clothes and the bandages, as well as his last shoe. And Weston had stayed with them, and now here he was, months after, about to leave with them as well.

He didn’t want to, but where else could he go?

Besides America.

That was where the Lord and Lady came from. They had only come back to Europe for their son, who had been worried about them being on the other side of the sea without him, only for the son to die before the Lord and Lady got to him. Now, they were going back there, to a land that was called Pennsylvania, in a town that was called Philadelphia, and they were bringing Weston with them.

Lord Cooke hadn’t looked all too happy about it, at first, but his wife hadn’t really asked him anything. Lady Cooke had been very sad about her son’s death, her real son, and she told Weston she thanked the Lord Almighty – even though it was in a wrong way – for having Weston brought to her. As a grandson of sort. Though Weston had already a grandmother, who had died a few years ago, from the same fever that had killed Muirne and Finnbar. And another, but who had died even before, when his Papa’s little sister had been born. He didn’t want a third one.

But staying with them meant Weston had clothes on his back, a roof over his head and somewhere warm to sleep – a real bed, and just for him, although it ended up too large and cold for him most nights – and food in his tummy. As much as he wanted, for three meals a day.

That was hard to refuse, and Weston was no imbecile. So he stayed quiet, and stayed with them.

He had never eaten as much in his life as he did those past months. Sometimes, it even almost made him sick with it, but he never said a thing.

He didn’t say much overall. Lord Cooke didn’t like when Weston didn’t speak English, and Weston didn’t like speaking English more than necessary. It was starting to weight on him. Weston didn’t like being on his own, he had never really been on his own, except for those days he had spent, huddled against a wall, sleeping outside and begging for a scrap of food and even then. There had been Crook, and Fiona, and Hugh every night, who came to talk to him. There had been a semblance of familiarity.

Everything now, about the life he lived with the Lord and Lady, was different from what he had ever known. The language, the clothes, the places, even the way Weston held himself – not straight enough, his shoulders hunched instead of squared. There were rules now, for every little things, and disapproving scowls if Weston messed up even a little bit.

He needed to learn how to speak, how to eat, how to conduct himself properly, because according to the Lord and Lady, he was nothing more than a farmer. And it showed.

They didn’t like that, that it showed. They wanted Weston to be like them, like the awaited grandson, and Weston complied. He hated it, and promised himself that he wasn’t all that, but he complied, nonetheless. For the warm clothes. For the bed, every night. And for the food.

Lord Cooke was teaching him how to behave like the son of an English gentleman, so that it would no longer show, when they’d arrive in this Philadelphia city.

Because, yes, now they were going to live in a city. A real city, bigger than the village where they had met. With buildings and plenty of streets, and dozens of shops and restaurants, Lord Cooke had said when he had wondered about it all. Weston could barely wrap his mind around it. It sounded strange and, to be honest, not that great at all. No trees, no rivers, no clearings.

And thus, this was why he hadn’t let his eyes stray away from the window since they had gotten on the carriage, this morning. The journey to the boat that would take them to America forever had lasted ten days, and this was the last one. In an hour, according to the coachman, they would be there, and the boat would sail off at midday sharp.

He had seen nothing else than meadows, fields and sheep for the past days, smelt the air mingled with wet grass and sharp, cold wind and trying to burn in his memory everything.

“Philadelphia is different,” Lady Cooke had told him, one night he couldn’t sleep because of the nightmares. “But you shall like it. Just as we do.”

Still, the port came into view way sooner than Weston would have liked, and he had to swallow back the lump in his throat to prevent himself from bursting into tears and fling himself away from that tight space, cramped with the old couple and a big pouch that didn’t fit in the trunk or up the carriage.

I reached the sea, Weston thought to himself as the coachman helped Lady Cooke get down the carriage. The… thing was huge. It didn’t even look like a boat, from where Weston was standing, so small compared to this pile of wood, so different from the picture Lady Cooke had shown him, a few weeks ago.

“Here, Weston, come,” Lady Cooke said, and suddenly there was no time anymore, Weston had to follow suite, but he wasn’t ready, he didn’t want to leave, he never wanted to leave.

He still did.

Where else could he go? His family was dead, his friends, too, the neighbors and the village. Too far away. He didn’t have anyone or anything.

This is a chance, the chambermaid had said, that very first night and, when Weston had felt the warm quilt on him, the fluffy pillow under his cheek that night, it had indeed felt that way. Somehow. A little bit.

The next few days, he had spent in awe of everything, thinking to himself, Papa would have liked that, or Sadhbh would have found this so pretty. Weston imagined his family would have liked going to America, too, even though he didn’t know for sure. It had never been a possibility for them to consider. For either of them.

He rushed to the first deck as soon as the well-dressed man had finished carrying every luggage in their cabin – it was a large one, with drawings on the walls, and Weston had his own bedroom, too. It resembled a small house, already furnished, and it baffled Weston that it wasn’t the only one, even on a boat as large as this. Lady Cooke had one domestic, a nice woman called Clara who helped her dress and do her hair, like a mama, and who had her own bed, as well, which was something she was truly happy of, as apparently it hadn’t been the case on the first journey.

Weston leaned over the safeguard and gaped at the sight, feeling his heart break inside his chest as well. The sun was high and bright, as spring was back, and he saw before his eyes what appeared as all of Eire. It wasn’t anywhere near his county, where Weston had been born and had lived all his life, but it was close enough. Grass and people weren’t that different looking anywhere. He hoped there would be plenty in this Philadelphia, even though it was a city, and the Lord and Lady had warned him it would be different in some ways. 

Soon, though, too soon, there was nothing else to see but the sea. Weston became surrounded by it.

The days on the boat were boring, as there was nothing much he could do besides take a walk on the deck for the first class only – as Lady Cooke had forbidden him to go downstairs to the mob, whatever that meant, and didn’t leave his side for one minute to make sure he obeyed. She made him talk to her, practice his English every minute of every day. So much that, sometimes at night, when he woke up and spoke to himself quietly, Weston found himself struggling to have a word come to him, as the English one sometimes, was the one to come first.

The first time he had realized he was forgetting how to speak, he had cried for hours on end and kept his mouth resolutely shut the next day, resolute to never speak a word again, if he was about to become an English. Never.

But the Lord and Lady didn’t agree with him. “It’s good,” they said. “English is spoken in the entire world. In America even. Gentlemen speak English, and so you must.”

He needed to get rid of his accent, she said, and made him work and work and work – talk and talk and talk about everything. In English. Ask him to describe what they were seeing, or ask him a question he might hear at a dinner or somewhere else, or he and Lord Cooke would pretend to be gentlemen meeting for the first time, and Weston had to introduce himself and make a proper conversation. Little by little, and helped by the past months where those exercises had been Weston’s everyday life, his accent faded away and he learnt how to properly speak nice English.

There were still slips, sometimes, or moments where he would frown and stop in the middle of a sentence to search for a word, or where he would mix up the following of words in a sentence, but they happened less and less. The Lord and Lady were delighted.

So delighted that they began the next step of transforming him in a proper little gentleman of Philadelphia society, just as Weston had thought he had been done with the whole thing.

One morning, Lord Cooke asked him to follow him, after Weston had finished his breakfast – the first meal of the day, and there were eggs and ham and beans and canned tomatoes, as well as bread and apple marmalade, since it was Weston’s favorite, and orange juice. As much as he wanted, as the boat’s garden gave endless supplies.

There was even some chocolate thing Weston recalled Sean had always wanted to taste, but it tasted disgusting in reality; Weston didn’t have to drink it anymore, however, since he said he didn’t like it. Lord Cooke had even been happy, since he said it was expensive. Weston rather not think about how much could something cost, if even the Lord and Lady found it expensive.

Weston followed him, and was thus showed to a desk alike the one Lord Cooke sometimes sat at and refused to be interrupted, and curtly introduced to the next step.

The next step which consisted in learning how to read, and how to write. “Vital,” Lord Cooke had explained, despite Weston having survived years already without knowing either. But the man wasn’t one to be contradicted, and so Weston settled himself to the task.

“You’ll go to school, of course,” Lord Cooke had told him, looking down to where Weston was trying to wipe off the ink from his fingers, disapproval at the sheer number of stains written all over his long face. “And for that, you’ll need to know how to write, how to read and how to count.” Every word felt spat, like a blow, as if they could enter easy as a whistle this way. “You’ll need to learn Latin, perfect your English, and a little French as well. You’ll need to read about history, geography and mathematics. How old did you say you were again?”

“I am ten years old, sir,” Weston answered, speaking clearly and enunciating the words properly, as he’d been taught. Lord Cooke liked Weston calling him sir. “Since last December.” That made it almost ten and a half, Weston added in his head, with a proud little smile tugging at his lips.

“Well, where I come from, and in Philadelphia as well, little boys already know all I’ve said when they’re ten. I suppose you never went to school either?” Weston shook his head, making Lord Cooke sigh lightly through his nose and close his eyes briefly, in a definite no-good behavior from a Philadelphian gentleman, though Weston kept his remark to himself. “Well, you shall learn everything before going to college. There is one in Philadelphia, and you’ll need to be accepted there. Thankfully, we still have slightly more than two years.”

And even though Lord Cooke had just said that there were two years still before Weston could get accepted to this college, they still didn’t lose any time before starting on the work.

Lord Cooke had written letters on a piece of paper, and Weston was to imitate the ups and downs and lefts and rights with his own pen until Lord Cooke would deem it good enough. Then, Weston was to repeat the sound each letter was, again and again, with Lord Cooke sometimes going back to the first letters, to make sure Weston wasn’t forgetting them along the way down the paper.

It kept it this way on and on, for hours, days and then weeks and months, until Weston knew.

How to speak properly. How to behave and eat and walk and stand. How to read, and write, and count. All in English.

But this was his life, now.

And it wasn’t that bad. The life in a city was dreadful, and the smell and absence of any grass, clearing or forest weighted on his spirit, a little bit, but Weston accustomed himself quickly enough. He made friends with Clara, and Roger, an English who had come to America and worked with Lord Cooke, sometimes, and Terrence, a neighbor who was around Weston’s age, and his relations with Lord Cooke bettered, once the old man didn’t need to correct Weston every two words, as he said it.

Not that he knew perfectly well how to speak a mistake-less English in any way, but he hid it. Well enough to pass for one – not that he was in England exactly, anyway.

Americans had freed themselves from the English, after all. Weston wasn’t exactly surrounded by enemies here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! :)  
> We'll go slightly forward in time next week, with school starting and new meetings happening


	5. Come Barging In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the new chapter! Things will pick up (slowly, though, because this is a slow burn) from this point forward.
> 
> Without waiting, let's jump into Weston's life at school, with its deal of inconveniences and encounters! Hope you like it!

_“Slightly more than two years” later_

College was an immense building, a bit away from the city and the one the Lord and Lady lived in, surrounded by a park and at walking distance from a bout of forest. Nothing like the forests Weston knew from his childhood, of course, but years living surrounded by stones and building taught him to be grateful for small mercies.

And those included a couple of trees planted together.

Unfortunately, he had been unable to go in the few weeks since he moved there.

He had noticed them as soon as he crossed the large gate and had then been showed the way to his dormitory and then the dining hall, for the headmaster’s annual welcome speech. The building became home for hundreds of boys, aged thirteen to eighteen, for eleven months, and took charge of their education. It consisted of attending various lessons, dispensed by pastors or intellectuals, such as Arithmetic and French. Just like Lord Cooke had told him, years ago.

The old man, who had introduced himself as Weston’s grandfather everywhere they went, had tirelessly readied him for his years of College. So much Weston had found himself awaiting the moment he would actually be able to leave, and breathe more easily there. Surely even lessons and teachers wouldn’t be such a hardship than having the Lord scrutinizing every letter with more attention than Lady Cooke had for her stitching. Lessons were various, and teachers had hundreds of pupils under their attendance. That was what he had thought. He hadn’t counted on mentors, however.

A man had assigned him one the moment the Lord signed next to his name on the register, that first day, before the welcome reception. Every first year had one, they had said.

And so Weston had, as well.

Mentors, or referees, were third-year students, and were expected to show them around and answer any questions they might have, as well as help them in any way they might ask for. His own had introduced himself on the first evening, squeezing his hand painfully as he shook it and giving him a meeting for the day after.

“Cooke!”

Chuckling under his breath, he darted to the left. The shouted-but-still-whispered-so-as-to-not-draw-attention-we-are-not-at-the- _circus_ -you-wild-animal call of his new surname wouldn’t make him stop. The effect doubly wasn’t the one intended by the older boy who was searching for him, running after him for what felt like hours, because Weston still wasn’t familiar with the part of answering to that name, despite it being officially his for the past three years, and because he had absolutely no intention at all to let himself be caught.

The fact that it was Elias Mackey looking for him, third year student and whose condition was proud English offspring, and that his voice sounded this breathless only spurred him on. A smaller, usually dormant part of his heart awakening.

He kept on jogging down the corridor, avoiding fellow older students on the way and listening for Elias’ hurried steps and muffled complaints. So that he wouldn’t draw attention, again. It seemed to be the older boy’s entire goal in life, which was more boring than Weston could imagine. Especially since he seemed set as well to have it be shared by Weston.

Hence the running, although he had no clear idea where he was going. His fellow first-year classmates had been lucky enough in their pick of mentors, and had received tours of the college and its surroundings, as well as more or less sincere offers of help and tutoring.

He hadn’t.

Elias had deemed it unnecessary, as it didn’t have anything to do with his lessons.

To attempt to know his way, Weston had wandered on his own in the corridors, stairs and thousands of rooms that counted the College of Philadelphia, and ended up finding how to go from the dining hall to his dormitory, and that was about it.

As for the help and tutoring, Weston preferred not to dwell upon those as of now.

Thus, he couldn’t know better, and turned to the right at the first closed door he encountered, barging into the silent room with a crash that immediately drew everyone’s attention. Gulping as silently as possible, he hurriedly closed the door behind himself.

After a quick look behind his shoulder to check he hadn’t banged it on the nose of another student by accident, Weston stepped more fully inside the common room. His shoulders sagged slightly with relief at the sight of students gathered and relaxing amongst themselves, and more especially in a place where silence wasn’t obligatory. Thank God it hadn’t been the library, or worse, the Chapel. It wasn’t morning, but still. He still recalled with a cringe and a snort his mistake on his first week there, when he had interrupted a mass while mistaking the door for the bathroom one.

His eyes darted around, searching for a spot to hide, as there was no chance Elias hadn’t seen him take his turn and wouldn’t be on his steps.

The older boy could be oblivious sometimes, like the numerous times he didn’t notice Weston’s just as numerous complaints that they truly didn’t need to keep on studying Latin, that the teacher himself said this wasn’t to be learnt yet, but Weston also knew Elias was nothing if not persistent.

So, he needed an alibi. If possible, one that would allow him his next hour of freedom to be used to do anything, literally. Weston wasn’t demanding, he would gladly settle for any other occupation than studying his Latin, or perfecting his English, or doing equations just because. He shuddered just thinking of it. His eyes found a vacant armchair, facing a small table where newspapers were piled up.

Perfect, he thought, the corners of his lips tugging upward at the sight. He almost threw himself at it, dodging around other armchairs, occupied by older students.

“I’ve been here for the past hour,” he told the other three students sitting next to him, while he tried to regulate his breathing as if he had spent the last hour sitting instead of running away from his mentor. He then picked one newspaper and quickly opened it in front of his face, just as the main door opened as well to Elias.

Thankfully, the other students in the room didn’t immediately point out his presence. The one sitting at the piano kept playing, and the others resumed their reading, of books and newspapers alike, their talking, or their playing their game of cards, or their game of chess. As for the closest three, only one of them paid him any mind, one with lighter hair who nodded a little with what looked like approval, once Elias threw daggers at the entire room, looking for him.

Elias’ eyes widened a bit when he found him, as Weston’s were peeking above the newspaper, before they narrowed. The look had surely be deemed terrifying by the older boy, akin to one that inspired cowering, if the sheer number of times he used it on Weston was any indication. Weston thought he looked about to be sick, although he took care not to utter it out loud after the reaction it caused the first time he had puffed at that face.

Anyway, he knew that look meant Elias wanted to scold him, and only restrained himself because they were surrounded by other students, Elias’ equals or uppers, as he called them. According to the older boy, it was the way the world was. There were superior people, who you needed to please and not disturb. There were equals, fellow men who knew your place in life because it was theirs as well and who you needed to overtake. And then there were lesser ones, who you didn’t need to pay attention to.

Weston, of course, was part of the latter. But Elias had found himself, at the beginning of the year, forced to pay attention to him. So he had deemed it his duty to raise Weston up to a sort-of-lower-equal, as Weston was supposed to be, just from his being a student here. The raise involved several courses, such as mentoring for Weston’s classes, teaching him better manners with a ruler, and plenty of other things Weston thoroughly hated but had to endure, as Elias was his mentor. For the whole year. Which had hardly begun.

He barely held back a sigh, pressing his lips together as Elias was now looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer. Weston hadn’t heard the question, but he had an idea of what the older boy might have said. Cooke, come with me at once, in a weird, deeper voice Elias liked to use because it made him sound older.

Sometimes, before falling asleep and after having listened to Thomas’ complaints about his own mentor, he esteemed this was truly unfair of him and resolved to be nicer to Elias. To remember his chance, to have happened on a dedicated mentor when his friend wished his would help him more. Thomas was a first year like him and, with Arthur and Donald, the only one whose whispers Weston could hear after lights out. Those often concerned his complaints about the difficulties he encountered, both by being away from his parents and at the strictness of some of the teachers. Weston hadn’t missed the look of envy that would sometimes cross his face, when Elias would gesture for him to sit next to him, for lunch or dinner.

Usually it meant Weston would be in for a scolding even during his meal, but his friends looked on his close friendship with an older student with appreciation. Appreciation not shared by Weston, though, despite his best resolutions of late evening.

So he shook his head at the order, and tilted his chin at the newspaper he held in his hands. “I can’t,” he retorted to the certain order. “I’ve been reading for the past hour, and I’ve just reached the most interesting article about… economics!” His cheeks warmed up slightly as two boys next to him huffed lightly, and Weston winced internally. The lighter-haired one even lifted his eyes to look at him once more, his head cocked to one side. He darted a look around himself and apologized silently at the loud sound. He wasn’t that rude. “I have to finish it,” he added, gulping around his confident tone.

Elias, when he looked up at him, didn’t look convinced in the least. In fact, he looked furious, as if Weston had stepped on his favorite toy and broken it. His face was all red, redder than Weston’s surely was. “Reading, uh?” he asked between gritted teeth.

Weston had the impression it was one of those rhetorical questions, one you asked but didn’t want an answer to – which was ridiculous, in Weston’s opinion – a practice Elias was very fond of. Rich folks liked doing things that didn’t have any use. He still had trouble getting used to it, and he had lived among them for three years. He stopped himself from nodding.

Then, strangely, while Elias had taken good care of speaking low and never looking at the three other boys sitting next, he turned toward the dark-haired one, whose face Weston still hadn’t seen. He hadn’t raised it from his newspaper, not when he turned the page, not when Weston had arrived, and not when Elias sighed deeply and flailed his hands in a strange way.

“See who they saddled me with, Montague, Morrison,” he turned to the lighter-haired one, and Weston frowned slightly. Those names were familiar to him. Elias had recited them already, when he had talked about upper, important people one needed to please. People like Elias himself, when Weston was concerned. “Brown,” Elias added, nodding to the one sitting next to Weston, whose hair was a bit darker than Morrison’s but whose round face looked kinder. Weston leaned back on his armchair, his sigh slipping past his lips which pursed slightly. Really, it was just his luck to pick the only chair surrounded with friends of Elias. “A donkey would be smarter than this boy. He doesn’t even know how to read.”

The accusation made Weston bristle and his hands twitched a little, wanting to tighten into fists and throw a punch. He knew how to read. He had been taught by the Lord and Lady, every day for months on end, slowly and painstakingly, but well. They hadn’t let him out of their sight until they had been satisfied he could read all the words he was presented with. And he could.

Mostly.

It wasn’t his fault some of them – and that wasn’t even all of the words anymore – were complicated. They were English ones. It was humiliating enough to follow the Lord and Lady’s instructions, as well as the teachers’ ones, now. See their puzzled faces when he stumbled on a complicated one. Hear their murmuring about him being simple. Still Weston did so without complaints, because he liked it all. He liked to have a bed and food three times a day without worrying about it, and he didn’t want to lose any of these, especially in that country, so far from where home was. America wasn’t even English, and that made it a little more bearable, with Weston not spending his days wanting to spit at English people’s faces. But still, it remained a thin line.

“Perhaps it is a new technic,” Morrison said, laughter evident in his voice, which made Weston frown and look down for the first time at the newspaper in his hands. Upside down. He muffled a groan, but a snort of laughter escaped him. What a concealment, indeed. “Yet to be generalized, isn’t it? Or perhaps he is an idiot. Though with such a teacher,” the lighter-haired one added, letting the words trail off as his eyes glanced pointedly at Elias, which made Weston chortle, this time.

Elias didn’t seem to have understood, and looked at Weston as if he were a bigger idiot than even he expected.

“It takes a bit more time to read like that, that’s why I’ve been at it for the past hour. I’m nearly reaching the end of the article, though. I can’t stop now!” Weston explained, a large grin on his face when Morrison – and Weston really didn’t get Elias’ habit of referring to everyone by their surname – returned it.

“Anyway,” Morrison resumed, “how is that your problem, teaching him? He seems fine on his own.”

“He’s my mentee,” Elias said, for all explanation. Weston rolled his eyes. Discreetly. To himself.

Elias Mackey liked to use that excuse in every situation that called or didn’t call for it. It wasn’t an excuse, though.

The thing was, Weston was fairly sure Elias had an awful experience with his own mentor, like Thomas did. He must have thought and lamented his mentor never had time for him and didn’t watch over his scholarship enough, or had wished to be less left on his own during his own first year, when he had been in Weston’s place. First-year Elias had then surely promised himself to remedy this when it would be his turn to be a mentor, and his current overwhelming presence with Weston was the result of that self-promise.

Really, it was the only explanation he could think of, for the other to behave that way with him, when none of the other mentors did with any of his fellow first-year students.

Now, Weston was very grateful and all, but his idea of fun wasn’t spending it at the library, trying to make sense of yet another foreign language, or arithmetic.

“Oh right. You’re in our year, then?”

“I am! It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Elias said, bowing his head, his hands clasped together in front of him, as if he were speaking to the king or something. Weston puffed to himself, hiding his face behind the newspaper. “My name is Elias Mackey. My father is-”

But Morrison interrupted him with a waving hand and, instead of making a sermon as he liked to do, Elias simply pressed his lips together and bowed his head once more.

For the first time, Weston thought he truly looked ridiculous. Thankfully, neither Morrison nor his friends commented on it. That was something Elias wouldn’t survive, Weston thought, him who wanted so much to please superior people.

“I don’t think I’ve talked to my mentee since the year started. What about you, Edmund?”

The so-called Edmund, who was sitting across from Weston, slightly raised his frowned eyes up from his newspaper and murmured an agreement.

“You must be lucky, then. They assigned me the worst of them. He’s an idiot. And severely disrespectful,” Elias said, his hand finally grabbing Weston’s sleeve, even though they were in public. It forced him to follow Elias, old knowledge resurfacing and preventing him from angering his mama by ripping his shirt by being stubborn. “With all his deepest excuses for bothering you, of course,” he added, tugging him up and dragging him to the door, under the puzzled or amused eyes of the entire common room. Weston could see the tip of his mentor’s ears darken with all the unwanted – the bad kind – attention he was getting, because of Weston.

“What were you thinking?” he demanded, once they were safely out of ears of everyone that counted, even though Willy was dusting a frame not far from them.

Willy wasn’t part of everyone who counted for Elias, despite Weston feeling his ears warm up at the thought of his friend hearing him getting scolded like that.

Willy was a bit older than Weston, and they had met the very first day Weston came here, accompanied of the Lord and Lady. He had been the one taking care of Weston’s luggage and had indicated where the main hall was. He had also been the one to introduce Weston to his mama, who worked here as a kitchen lady and who never failed to give Weston a bigger portion of dessert when he asked. Weston liked them both a lot.

To ask Elias to go somewhere else wouldn’t serve anything, however, so Weston pressed his lips together and looked down.

“I can’t believe I’m now getting associated with the likes of you in their minds! An opportunity I’ve waited for, for two years! Do you have any idea who they are? No, of course you don’t! You’re an idiot and now I’m… My father had such great hopes, and now any sort of friendship will be harder to start, and all of that because of you. Though Benjamin, yes Benjamin seemed to understand me. You better hope he does, or else I shall…”

Weston stopped listening after a while, and exchanged sorry looks with Willy, above Elias’ shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> If you have any questions, or want to say hi, or gush with/at me about anything really, or let me know what you think of the fic so far, feel free to leave a comment or a message on my [tumblr](https://melimelo-ao3.tumblr.com/)! I’ll also post some aesthetics (not just yet) or personal thoughts about the story under #IDY.
> 
> Thank you for reading :)


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